I am my boy’s mommy.

Is there any other job where you are required to start immediately after having run an all-night (or multiple night) marathon? Nothing comes to mind. Parenthood is crazy y’all! Things are always changing, routines are different, and this little one just keeps us going and going. We’re nearing the 8 month mark, which just totally blows my mind. I can’t even go there because for one, it means I’ve (ONLY) got 4 months left at home with my boy, and two, because he is growing. so. fast.

I never imagined that I’d ever utter the sentiments “aww, remember when you were just so teeny, I sorta kinda miss those days” because those days were filled with non-stop night screaming and minimal sleep. But I believe I have uttered that exact statement within the past week. Am I nuts? Perhaps. There’s something addictive about that baby thang, but not when you’re in the midst of it. Oh hell no. Don’t know about you, but I wanted to run, oh so fast, oh so far away.

Cade is the most active boy I have ever known. He’s learning how to crawl, but can’t quite figure out the upper body part of the equation. Getting there, and as he’s getting closer, we’re fearing more and more for our lives. He has already pinpointed the cords and everything else that looks fun and unfriendly for children. He rarely stops, except for when he’s sleeping, and even then he moves and wriggles and squirms right up until the point his eyes shut and he enters the wonderful land of sleep, though he doesn’t quite realize how awesome it is yet. Not sure if that day will ever come at this rate. I shouldn’t go there. You know, he’s a pretty amazing napper. Consistently naps for usually about 1.5 hours morning and afternoon. We think we’ve found a pattern to his night-time-sleep-fights. If he doesn’t get a third nap around suppertime, he is way too exhausted by the time bedtime (8pm) rolls around and he cannot settle and then is up until nearly 10. We really need to try and squeeze a little nap, even 30-45 minutes, around supper to combat this. Like I said, he hasn’t quite realized the awesomeness of sleep. While he’s fighting to stay up, I’m fighting to want to sleep. Oh the days, oh the days.

We’ve also started a new little fun and super cute routine of Cade Pooping & Peeing on the Toilet every morning. It’s so dang cute, I just can’t help myself. Plus, we’d change him right when he wakes up in the morning, and then he nearly ALWAYS poops when he sits in his highchair to eat breakfast. So one day I decided that instead of changing him, then changing a poopy diaper 10 minutes later, we’d just plop him on the toilet and see what happened. Well, poop is what happened, and then pee! I can’t tell you how adorable this tiny (‘cept he’s not tiny, he’s 22 lbs!) little boy looks with his butt on the big toilet. He grunts and I know exactly what’s coming. Plop. Cute. Can pooping ever be cute? Whatever, it kinda is in those moments. It’s kind of an offshoot of Elimination Communication, except honestly, we’re not really watching his cues throughout the day. Sometimes we do for the poos, because they tend to come at consistent times throughout the days.

We’re now full-time cloth diapering and l-o-v-i-n-g it! We’ve built our stash up to 22 diapers, and I am addicted. Constantly looking online at different brands, reviews, types, colours, patterns. The options are seriously endless. Our go-to diaper seems to be the Charlie Banana one-size pocket diaper. It’s nice and trim, fits the boy good, and holds in the dirties. They seem to be a bit smaller than our other one-size diapers, so really hoping they will last until he is potty-trained, or at least close. Hard to tell. Cade’s a big boy, but once he starts crawling more and walking, there ain’t no stopping, and so he’ll probably be on some crazy active weight-loss thing.

In terms of the extra laundry from the diapers, it’s really not a big deal. Right now, we’ve been line drying the diapers, and not only does the sun make an excellent natural bleach agent, it saves on energy, and dries the diapers really quickly. We were using the bumGenius laundry detergent, however we recently purchased some natural detergent (cloth-diaper friendly of course) from CleanB. The bonus to this stuff, as far as I’m concerned, is that the smell sticks with the diapers. Usually if this is the case, it means there is buildup, but not with this stuff! I’m pretty pumped about it, because some light lavender scented diapers are totally cool in my books. Check out all the other scents, she’s got a million of them and I want them ALL. We haven’t tried it yet, but once we do, I’ll report back.

The other bonus about cloth, is that the boy’s bum is not rashy like it used to be in disposables. This is a huge huge perk. Cade’s skin is so sensitive and the chemicals and materials in disposables were just not jiving with his little bottom. We switched to cloth wipes early on in his life for that reason as well. Back to basics baby. Homemade cloth solution (olive oil, water, and baby wash) smells a heck of a lot better to me than traditional baby wipes anyway. And the diapers. Oh, the smell. The odd time we put him in disposables now, I can’t stand how they smell once he’s peed or pooped in them, but especially pee. It’s a chemical-urine smell that I like to avoid, now that we’ve done so for the past 2 months.

Brief photo-montage-story-documentation – this is the story of how Cade quickly spotted my cell phone and proceeded to claim it for himself:

So close, SO close. love the determination face. precious and priceless.

it’s mine. victory. is. MINE!

SUCCESS! so proud, and so nonchalant and oblivious to anything else going on.

I can sense the boy waking up soon, so I best end this little Cade recap. With… an exciting update? It IS exciting, it just creates anxiety for me, slightly, so excitement topped with a little sprinkle of anxiety. We found daycare. It’s confirmed, the deposit has been submitted, and it’s a go. I’ll start taking him in October a couple times a week so he can get used to her and the kids, and vice versa. I’m excited that we found someone who I think will be really great. I get nothing but good vibes. My mama spidey senses are telling me great things. Found her via Kijiji, but then a couple days later, Kyle came home with a phone number and name of a daycare provider someone he works with recommended. Turns out it was the same one! Talk about meant to be? I’m thinkin’ so.

So as perfect timing goes, I can hear little noises coming from the bedroom down the hall. They’re ‘puu’ ‘p’ noises. That’s his favourite. He’s telling me he’s up, and he’s telling me to get off my arse and go and get him, so that is exactly what I am going to do. The post-nap and morning wakeup smiles are the best and get me charged up and ready to go for the day. So sweet, so perfect, so cute.